The Breeze hit a major milestone this week — we marked our 60th anniversary as Cape Coral’s community newspaper on Tuesday.

On Dec. 14, 1961, a Cape Coral couple, Dick and Sally Crawford, published Volume 1, No. 1 of the Cape Coral Breeze, the four-year-old community’s first “real newspaper.”

Their plan? A local newspaper that would “carry primarily news of particular interest to Cape Coral residents — the daily comings and goings of our community, the important items affecting its growth and prosperity.”

Their mission? To attempt to “promote harmony in our community and to assist in everyway possible toward the growth of Cape Coral into the type of city we, the residents desire.”

Through the decades and the changes they have brought; through all the upheavals of boom times and recession, war and pandemic; through the countless headlines and stories, city milestones and more, we hold still to our founding premise: to report the stories and provide the information that matters most to the residents of Cape Coral.

That means the “big headlines” like today’s story detailing Cape Coral City Council’s approval of a multi-million dollar economic development and jobs creation plan.

That means letting our community know about upcoming events such as this weekend’s Wreaths Across America and next week’s candlelight vigil to call attention to homelessness and remember those who died as a result.

It’s letting you know that you can now text 911 should a voice call not be an option and outlining how you can do it.

It’s the feature about Challenger middle schooler Aubrey Duncan whose year-long mission has been to brighten the day of her school’s teachers. It’s the “good news” story of the team effort by teachers at Caloosa Elementary that brought needed funding to their classrooms.

It’s community notices, contributed columns and calendar items.

It’s being a forum for various voices through letters to the editor and guest commentaries from local officials and others looking to inform the public.

It’s being a conduit between local businesses and residents by providing the means to get their message out.

It’s community journalism.

It’s what we do. It’s what we have done for 60 years, virtually the whole life of a city now the largest between Tampa and Miami with lots of room still to grow.

Our milestone will be marked in two ways.

In next week’s Breeze, we will publish our 60th anniversary commemorative section, Celebrating 60 Years. We invite you to step back into our history as well as meet our current team leaders and some of our long-time employees who are featured in the section to publish Dec. 24.

The second is a special exhibit that opened Thursday night at the Cape Coral Museum of History.

On display is lots of memorabilia, including historical artifacts from The Breeze’s own archives. A highlight is the display of every edition of The Breeze over the first year of publication from 1961 to 1962.

The exhibit will be featured until April 2.

We thank the museum for marking our milestone and we invite those of you who are interested to check it out.

The Cape Coral Museum of History is at 544 Cultural Park Blvd. Hours are from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday-Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturdays. The general admission for adults is $5 and free for children under 17 and students with ID. Tours are available and a gift shop is on site.

We also thank everyone who made our 60-years-and counting journey possible — every single one our readers and advertisers through the years and all of the people who have contributed to The Breeze through submissions, interviews, news tips and more.

The Cape Coral Breeze was founded to be your paper, our community’s paper. That is what we strive to be today, in print and also online where we bring you Cape stories and news updates throughout the week.

We are grateful, deeply grateful, to everyone who has helped make that happen.

–Breeze editorial